Review: Imagine Vancouver in 2032

In the delightful 2013 film “About Time,” a father reveals a rather unusual secret to his son — that when the men in their family turn 21, they have the ability to go back in time to an earlier point in their life. How this rather unusual feat is possible is never explained; it is just accepted and the movie proceeds from that surprising premise.

A similar suspension of disbelief is required in the “ecotopian” novel, Journey to the Future, by Vancouver Island writer Guy Dauncey. In this story, when young Vancouverite Patrick Wu sneezes twice, it somehow allows him to travel forward in time to the year 2032. Once there, he has four days to explore the Lower Mainland and try to understand how Vancouver, “led by its inspirational mayor, Gregor Robertson,” has become one of the greenest cities on Earth.

Patrick covers a lot of territory in those four days, both geographically and especially in terms of the developments and ideas that he discovers.

To be clear, the people of our future world have not yet eliminated the problems that we face today: food scarcities, air and water pollution, forest fires, poverty, inequality, extreme weather, the overuse of anitbiotics, and, of course, global warming. The corporate and economic elites are still in control (although they are on the defensive, as when Walmart pulled out of Canada because workers began to organize into unions). The fundamental difference, however, between now and then is that the Wall Street collapse of 2008 was followed by an even more damaging global crash, which motivated people around the world to finally give these multiple crises the attention that they demand, and progress was made at many levels.

For instance, public demand forced governments to agree to close down many foreign tax havens and to sign treaties that — unlike the recent Paris accords — were legally binding and mandated significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution.

Nationally, it turns out that Prime Minister Trudeau kept his campaign pledge to move the electoral system to a more democratic form of proportional representation, which resulted in governments paying more attention to the public’s wishes.

Most of the book, however, is focused on local changes in Metro Vancouver that have improved the quality of daily life for all. Many streets, both in the city itself and in the suburbs, have been closed to automobiles and have been turned into parks, gardens, playgrounds, and other facilities that reduce pollution, noise, and congestion.

As our time-traveler observes (or rather, WILL observe) in one neighbourhood:

“Instead of three lanes on the road there was just one with passing spaces. The rest of the street looked more like a garden.The sidewalks were lined borders filled with fuscias, hollyhocks, marigolds, and young tomato plants, a creek ran down one side, and there was a play area next to the shelter.”

These spaces also allow neighbours to actually get to know each other and create a real sense of community, via block parties, potluck dinners, dances, and similar social events.

Economic insecurity has been reduced with several effective programs, such as the Citizen’s Income plan for all, “combined with the raised minimum wage, the subsidized daycare, the Living Wage Pledge…and the end of student debt.”

With the end of the Indian Act, the rights of First Nations are given more respect, and some of their traditions are helping to guide the evolution of society in British Columbia.

The school system is designed to treat students more as individuals and less as an undifferentiated group whose “education” is a matter of rote learning and regurgitation.

In the effort to make a more sustainable society, VanCity Credit Union is mentioned as supplying low-interest loans to members who use the money to retrofit their homes with renewable energy sources like solar power, as well as installing more efficient insulation.

Another local group, the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association (VEVA) helped a few students to “form a small conversion co-op. They rented a space an in less than a year, working one evening a week, they converted six vehicles.”

Farms are depicted as mostly organic, less dependent on fossil fuels, and still more productive and sustainable than is the norm today.

Dauncey’s work is full of relevant data dealing with such issues as economics, psychology, agriculture, technology, and yes – he even “commits sociology.” (The various discussions of metaphysics that some characters have are, however, sometimes too “new agey” and unconvincing).

While the conversations in which these areas are discussed can be a bit heavy with detail, they are very important concepts for the reader to understand. The author’s decision to present them in the form of a novel as opposed to a textbook goes a long way to make the material both more digestible and more interesting.

The appendices provide the reader with valuable sources and suggestions for further discussion, and the book’s 940 footnotes(!) can be found at: www.journeytothefuture.ca.

Most of all, Dauncey wants to inspire readers with a vision that, as Murray Bookchin argued, almost all of today’s problems and scarcities are both artificial and unnecessary; and yes, a better, more democratic world is possible.

This rich and fascinating tour-de-force is a contribution to the creation of such a world.

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